To me, Oyster says, The only power of life and death you have is every time you order a hamburger at McDonald's.
Mycroft could just phone me, if he didn't have this bloody stupid power complex!
You turn up your music to hide the noise. Other people turn up their music to hide yours. You turn up yours again. Everyone buys a bigger stereo system. This is the arms race of sound. You don't win with a lot of treble. This isn't about quality. It's about volume. This isn't about music. This is about winning. You stomp the competition with the bass line. You rattle windows. You drop the melody line and shout the lyrics. You put in foul language and come down hard on each cussword. You dominate. This is really about power.
Power don't come from a badge, or a gun. Power comes from lying. Lying big and getting the whole damn world to play along with you. Once you got everybody agreeing with what they know in their hearts ain't true, you get them by the balls. There's what, maybe people in this hospital. I could pump you full of bullets right now and I wouldn't be arrested. Everyone would lie for me, everyone who counts. Otherwise all their own lies, everything that runs Sin City, it all comes tumbling down like a pack of cards.
One must require from each one the duty which each one can perform.
Accepted authority rests first of all on reason.
If you ordered your people to go and throw themselves into the sea, they would rise up in revolution.
I have the right to require obedience because my orders are reasonable.
Power is not a means, it is an end.
One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship.
The object of persecution is persecution.
The object of torture is torture.
The object of power is power.
But he would see this country burn if he could be king of the ashes.
Do you know the most demeaning thing you can do to the law that we should respect? Creating and administering a law that is unworthy of protection. You shouldn't underestimate humans.